13 
still green when the untreated plats were ready for harvesting. When 
the seed was limed after having soaked for twelve hours much of the 
injury was prevented. 
J.C. Arthur! recommended that seed oats be soaked for twenty-four 
hours in a solution of 4 ounces of copper sulphate to each gallon of 
water. If the strength of the solution be increased four times, two 
hours’ soaking will be sufficient. Thesame author? soaked oats for five 
minutes in a solution of 1 pound of copper sulphate to 1 gallon of water. 
The smut was greatly reduced by the treatment, but the germination 
was two days later and the yield 4 bushels less per acre than in the 
adjacent plats of untreated seed. <A lot of seed treated in the same 
way gave in a tester 67 per cent germination as compared with 98 per 
cent for a similar lot of untreated seed. In the case of the treated 
seed the germination was abnormal, sometimes the radicle protruding 
first and at other times the plumule, and in many cases when the roots 
did appear they sprang from the first or second nodes of the young 
stem. In another instance Arthur placed in a Geneva tester a lot of 
42 treated seeds which had lain two days in the ground. At the end 
of seven days there were 41 plumules, 34 of which appeared the first 
two days. The roots began to push out the second day, 11 appearing 
on the third day and the last on the fourteenth day. In another experi- 
ment he found that germination was greatly delayed and subsequent 
erowth checked by the use of copper sulphate, although there was no 
question of the treatment preventing the smut. 
C.S. Plumb? found that soaking oats for seventeen and a half hours 
in a Solution of 4 ounces of copper sulphate per gallon gave a crop con- 
taining 2 per cent of smutted heads, while soaking for forty hours 
entirely destroyed the smut spores. 
Kellerman and Swingle* experimented in 1890 with fungicides for the 
prevention of oat smut. They found that seed soaked in a 0.5 per cent 
solution of copper sulphate for twenty-four hours gave at harvest an 
increased yield, entirely free from smut. Stronger solutions injured 
germination, and a strength of 9.9 per cent killed all seed. 
W. T. Swingle® recommends soaking oats for twelve hours in a solu- 
tion of 1 pound of copper sulphate to 24 gallons of water, and immers- 
ing the seed in limewater for from five to ten minutes before planting. 
Hollrung® treated barley for sixteen hours with a 0.5 per cent solu- 
tion of copper sulphate, and afterwards soaked it for five minutes in 
limewater. The treated seed gave 89 per cent germination and the 
check lot 98 per cent. The amount of smut was as 1 to 30 for the 
‘Ind. Sta. Bull. No. 28. 
2Ind. Sta. Bull. No. 35. 
3N. Y. State Rept., 1886, p. 124. 
4Kans. Sta. Bull. No. 15, p. 109. 
5U. 8. Dept. Agr. Farmers’ Bull. No. 5. 
6 Braunschw, Landw. Ztg., 52, 1894, No. 51, p. 214. 
